Sorry for the length of this post, I just feel like i need to give every bit of information possible.
This is my first post on this site so a small bit of background information. I am a 22 year old male working as a bartender in a nightclub. I have been suffering with bad anxiety from the age of 15 or 16, progressively getting worse as the years went on. In the past few years it has been extremely bad due to lots of reasons, the main one being the drama behind my parents break-up which was about 2 - 3 years ago (but the fighting started about 8 years ago). I'll spare all the little details, lets just say I have been through a LOT of stress and bad experiences (mam and dad both had depression too), the worst is over since just recently (i hope) but I am still going through rough times. The doctor said I suffer with bad anxiety and slight depression. I also have bad OCD and am a hypochondriac. So the doctor put me on escitalopram teva tablets and sent me for councelling.
Anyways, I suffer with a lot of unusual body aches and pains. Previously I have gone to the doctor about abdominal pains and chest pains, which I was very worried about as I googled my symptoms and most websites said I had cancer or some other terrible illnesses. The doctors put them down to Anxiety and that's when they sent me for councelling. I am finished my councelling a few months now and I have recently decided to come off my anti-depressants (I only have about 2 weeks of tablets left until I will be off them completely) as the side effects are also ruining my day to day life. I constantly feel tired and have no energy, I also don't feel much emotion anymore. Most days i feel like i'm in a dream, walking around as if nothing is real. My memory is absolutely terrible, and everybody notices it too (not that them noticing bothers me) but not being able to remember what I've done in my own life is horrible. I don't feel excited for much, I just find myself worrying about my health problems instead of enjoying myself, constantly. I wake up worrying and fall asleep worrying. I have had (and am currently having) health scares. Some consist of finding hard lumps on my testicles - the lumps sometimes dissapear so the doctors told me they are fine, i have also found unusual lumps on different parts of my body, etc etc. But the doctors told me they are all nothing to worry about, but unfortunately I still worry. I also used to get all these really random uncomfortable pains in my abdominal area and chest. They would never stay in one place for more than a few hours though, it was like the pains moved to another area in their own free will. I went to the doctor and they told me it was because of my anxiety. I think they were right because the pains went after a few days of knowing there was nothing wrong with me.
Now, however, I am in a similar situation again. I just got back from the doctors the other day after going complaining about more aches and stomach problems. Basically I went in and told the doctor that my stomach is bloated and is sore, mostly in the right hand side under my right ribcage. There is a dull ache there and sometimes it feels hard inside, but sometimes it softens (slightly) again. Every now and then my chest gets this tight feeling, and then it feels like some breath has been sucked out of me. Sometimes i get stabbing pains in my chest and what feels like my heart too. She had a look at my file and said that when i got my tests done last year that I was low in folic acids. She then just prescribed me tablets for that and also vitamin D tablets, and put my pains down to anxiety again. Normally once I find out this news then the pains go, but they don't seem to be going this time. Sometimes the pain will move from under my right ribcage to in the center, around my solar plexus area. Right now however it is mainly an uncomfortable feeling in my lower right abdomin and slightly under the right rib cage. It can sometimes be pretty sensitive to push down on. I forgot to tell the doctor that I am gassy, flatulating a lot and excreting about 4 or 5 times a day (although I have always gone often enough per day, i have a very fast metabolism), it's just now when I need to go I feel like I wont be able to hold it for too long without it being really uncomfortable. I think I could have seen tiny specks of red in it, which worries me more, and bits of white that slightly resemble nuts? I also forgot to tell her that I am experiencing acid reflux again (I told one of the other doctors before though so it's on my file), i feel like my chest and throat are burning a lot and yesterday after dinner i burped up this white foamy stuff. Even today I feel when I burp that a bit of food is going to come up. And just there the other night in work I start getting a sore back (middle-bottom right area) that made me feel a bit sick. I was doing a bit of heavy lifting then and today though, so it could be just from that? My back pain seems to be getting slightly worse.. could it be the way i sleep? The worry is killing me, because no matter what is wrong with me I always think the worst.
To make matters worse, we are broke and can't afford to pay for our house anymore so we have to sell it by January or we lose it. It's not making me too sad but it is just an addition to all of my stress, as I will be leaving my family home for good and moving to a different side of the country, leaving all my friends.
So what I really want to know is can all these physical symptoms just be down to severe anxiety and stress? Or do you think I should go visit the doctor again? I am very sorry for the length of this, but any help and advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Some additional info that might be useful:
- Sometimes get this pins and needles feeling in my left arm right down to my baby finger, which scares me and makes me think I'm having a heart attack.
- I regularly get constipated.
- My vision has gotten very blurry all of a sudden in the past few months, since I started the anti-depressants.
- I have experienced sleep paralysis which was terrifying.
- My sleeping pattern is bad from working in a club (and i used to not be able to sleep at night at all) so i go to bed about 6am, and wake up around 4pm nearly all the time. Even though that is a generous amount of sleep, my dreams do be so realistic and bizarre. Nearly every single night i have a realistic dream (that genuinely feels like it's real life) and then i wake up not knowing whether i actually am awake or not because the dream felt so real, so I wake up feeling more tired than i did before i slept.
- I feel like i suffer from Depersonalization (derealization), the doctor didn't tell me I do but I have read online about it and it is literally exactly how i feel all the time.
Thank you so much to whoever takes time to actually read and reply to this <3
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